The present invention relates generally to surgical instruments and, more particularly, to a spring-loaded plier-like instrument having grooved jaws to secure a suture needle when the jaws are closed.
In many medical procedures or emergency situations a physician is often required to close and join the edges of an incision or wound with one or more sutures by the use of a small curved needle. During the suturing process, the physician must positively grip and hold the needle while achieving maximum stability and control of the needle. This is particularly true where the tissue surrounding the incision or wound is quite thin or delicate.
There are several prior art plier-like instruments and other holding devices available for gripping and securing suture needles. Many of the prior art devices are simply specially constructed long-nosed or needle-nosed pliers which may or may not have grooves provided at the distal end of the jaws to grasp a needle. Such a plier-like device requires that a physician continuously exert a closing force on the plier handles while using the instrument. Other prior art devices comprise scissor-like devices which include a ratchet mechanism between the scissor handles to couple and lock the handles together thereby maintaining the scissor jaws in a closed configuration and securely gripping and holding a needle. The ends of the handles typically carry finger loops to facilitate grasping the device. While the locking scissor device overcomes the necessity of exerting a closing force on the handles, grasping and controlling the scissor device with the finger loops tends to detract from the physician's control of the instrument during the suturing process.